Fighter: *dies* Cleric: "Okay, 60 seconds on the clock to Revivify" Necromancer: "Excuse me, coming through"

did anyone else notice that his hair almost perfectly matched the mountain in the background?

Cody, you gotta stop making videos I'm scared that my players will find

That moment you realize that an NPC in a campaign can win the whole campaign if they put effort into it.

**enemy Wizard see's a undead horde approaching his tower** **laughs in meteor swarm**

This is spooky, imagine that turn. The skeletons go, "1000 arrows pepper the skies.. Do I even need to roll..."

Step 1: start a franchise opportunity for a mortuary business. People bring your franchisees their dead to be buried after a tasteful viewing. Keep it nice: flowers, memorial service, no open bar. Your intent is to collect the bodies, animate them and come back to town 1 year later reigning destruction. However, before you do, your accountant shows you the outrageous profit margins the mortuary business has and you decide to not invade as you make a better "living" already. Now what are you gonna do with 2 k undead?

_[sees a necromancer raising thousands of undead minions]_ *Inquisitor:* "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, B1?" *Paladin:* "I think I am, B2!" *Together: "ＩＴ＇Ｓ ＣＲＵＳＡＤＩＮＧ ＴＩＭＥ!"*

Level 20 Sorcerer. Convert 2 level 1, 3 level 2, and 1 level 3 spell slot every day into sorcery points after using 2 of the spells. Twin Spell finger of death 4 times/day. Completely free 2920 permanent zombies. Use all spell slots the last day on animate dead. Make spell scrolls and gems if you want. This method is simpler and yields more zombies.

OUR UBERMENSCH OP BUILD Level 20 wizard. Race doesn't matter. Yeah sounds about right lol

So I accidentally mispronounced "Mausoleum" as "Maulosseum" and my table joked that it was a Giant Colosseum of Undead fighting for the right to be resurrected. This build now gives me a great idea for a necromancer amassing warriors to rig battles haha in my future Maulosseum story arc.

My current campaign features a nation ruled by a LN aligned Vampire Clan, so any settlement in the nation of Large Town size or greater has a Necromancer's Guild office. Skeletons, clad in black clothing that hides their features, are a core part of the economy. They do a lot of the unskilled labor and grunt work around the country. The humans of the nation have been given a blood gift by the vampire house, and are like 1/8 vampire 7/8 human. So they're vulnerable to wooden piercing damage, they have to CHA save to enter running water, but they have boosted STR, CON, advantage on climb, resist necrotic damage. Pretty cool stuff. The Necromancer's Guild is always looking for more bodies, so it's fodder for lower level adventurers to make money going outside the nation and making war on the orcs, goblins, elves, and goliaths that are enemies and to bring back their bodies to turn into skeletons. Goliath skeletons are most prized.

I would allow my players to do it HOWEVER its not like the rest of the region wont notice trying to hide 1k zombies is difficult.

imagine asking your DM if you can spend a year raising an undead army

Also necromancers can carry rat skeletons from the party's last meal and have skeleton rats trigger all the traps, lead monsters to ambushes, and detect smartass traps in small anti-magic zones by falling apart in the anti-magic zone. They also chew ropes, carry exploding/acid/holy water type vials to where they fall on enemies...

Day 1: Finger repeatedly. ... I'm 31 years old but still giggled like a schoolboy.

Just a quick note, there's the "Feeblemind" spell that let's you temporarily, a.k.a for the moment of command undead-ing, turns creature into something with a 1 intelligence, allowing you to technically command undead even the most intelligent of the undeads. Now granted, one could argue that command undead is constantly checking if the creature dominated has high enough of an intelligence instead of checking it at the moment you dominate their mind. So, that Lich you thought was the bbeg? Just yet another minion, alongside the Ancient Red dracolich.

Cleric: Watch me ruin this mage's whole career with a 2nd level ability.

I cant take my eyes off how perfectly his head shape and hairstyle match the moutain behind him

Take into account that by level 20 you are more than likely to have a few apprentices or followers, who can add to your undead army-

My DM despises having to roll for tons of creatures in combat, so time to make them roll initiative for 5 party members and 1,000,000 zombies!

Before you do all that, first you need to: 1. Get some necromancer buddies from the College of Magic 2. Start a war to weaken the armies of the living and give you more bodies

everything he wanted was to move into an old castle... but everyone he came across on his journey immediately thought he must be evil and startet to fight him. now he stands there with quite an army and is forced to fight even if doesn't wanted to.

I see a lot of videos showing builds all the way up to level 20. How about a video about great level 10 builds? How many players ever make it to level 20?

Why send the living to die in your lord's wars when you can rally the dead instead?

To do this, you basically need to make Demiurge's Happy Farm from Overlord.

This video really brings home the similarities between necromancers and school principals

100% allow. And make sure the group would have issue with it and/or make that player be the final boss. Basically pushing him to take over once the other big bad is gone.

This build sounds like an awesome basis for a sandbox campaign with a DM and one player.

as an aspiring necromancer and grave domain cleric that dables in horde work i loved this vid !!

If a player in my game wanted to do this, that could be fine depending on the setting. Though i would make them take into consideration the potential consequences of having a horde of undead at their command. Additionally, once they reached 10+ i would group their army into, at most, four separate initiatives. And some things would just be, “Ok, yep. Your horde of zombies wins.”

The undead horde idea is cool, but what about a necromancer that focuses more on a few much more powerful undead as servants, how would that play out vs just mass zombies

Obviously if my players started an undead horde that size they'd be met with an army of *Insert god that dislikes undead*.

When talking about Finger of Death and said 'fingergun someone to death', my mind totally thought he said fingerbang someone to death. I played in a game once where I tried to go totally horde style necromancer build, trying to raise or create everything I could. The DM quickly just stopped putting in many humanoid enemies for me to raise and kept putting in foes that could AoE my groups with spells or one shot multiple of them with attacks. It really 'killed' the whole drive and vibe of the play. And on top of that half the party thought I was worthless in the group and the other half thought I was just giving them a free round to act with foes focused on my stuff first most of the time.

You need to do a conjurer build. I would work the players goals into my campaign, and I often include large scale battles anyway so it wouldn't really break my campaigns, especially at lvl 20.

You left out the possibility of permanently dominating zombie t-rexes. They regurgitate zombies themselves.

Holy F, this morning I woke up and said "I wanna make a bad ass Necromancer" AND YOU GO AND MAKE A VID ON IT?? WHAT ARE THE ODDS???

I just got the pdf for Legendary Dragons and it’s going to be an amazing addition to my first campaign!

I wouldn't mind the players building such an army. But, they will have to find a way to deal with those pesky undead slaying adventurers and king's army who took notice.

Takes a minute to animated dead. At level 20 you can use level 3 spells without wasting a spell slot. 2 undead per min. Per hour 2x60 = 120 120x6 = 720 720 undead at the ready in 6 hours with +20 to their HP and +6 to their damage. If you spend all your time creating undead. OR if you spend a whole 10 hours 120x10 = 1'200 undead. Use that undead to wipe whole towns and then get caravan trains. That being just strictly corpses. Have the undead assault a city, get about 150 undead to carry corpses back and if all the undead die, well now you got 10 hours to send a whole other hoard of undead

In a campaign last year, we were in the Shadowfell. The DM gave us a few homebrew rules for the plain; light sources only cast dim light, and were not visible from outside of the lights radius, failed death saving throws were permanent until a long rest, all necromancy school spells could be cast one level lower than normal (which everyone could cast spare the dying for free) and due to the fact the realm was pretty much made of corpses animate dead and similar spells did not require material components. At first the last two didn't really effect out party, but four sessions from the end my warlock failed a wisdom saving throw against the BBEG and ended up jumping off a cliff. We new the next session or two would probably involve climbing a big necromancers tower, so for ease of character introduction I decided to make my new character a one of the cultists in the tower who had rebelled against the lich in charge due to a lack of dental and other workers benefits. So, I started the next session with 20 skeletons. We were doing theatre of the mind for combat, which meant I didn't have to worry about controlling all of those tokens, but I did have to roll 20d20 each turn for their short bow attacks. The DM quickly realised he should be dealing with the complete inanity which was my large bony entourage, so by a couple of sessions later my skelebois had been whittled down to only 8. But due to the fact all the sessions my necromancer was in took place over one in game day, I never had to worry about maintaining control over them, so I could spend my spell slots on other things, like joining the BBEG in the last session and murdering my other party members. The last session devolved into a big brawl, me, my skeletons and the BBEG's army of shadow monsters vs my other four party members and a mid level celestial that had showed up to help them contain a breach the BBEG had opened between the shadofell and the material plain. At the end of the 5+ hour combat, I had been knocked unconscious, all but three of my skeletons were dead, the air elemental I had summoned had gone rouge, the celestial was being swamped wit hundreds of cr 1/2 shadows and the rest of my party was dead. My necromancer woke up as the last living servant a new shadowfell empire, but at least this time his new undead overlords provided dental!

Don't forget you can put them into +2 Full Plate Adamantine armor, +3 Shield and +3 Weapon. It is comfirmed by the creators that zombies and other creatures you've raised have proficiency IN ALL ARMOR, SHIELDS AND WEAPONRY. Don't forget the MOST IMPORTANT PART, you can make your summons attune to Magic Items by command, as the Zombies are indeed capable of focusing onto something IF commanded to.

The art of that book you contributed too is really cool, Cody.

of course legendary dragons book has dragons... and everyone knows that dragons makes everything better. so legendary dragons makes dragon things even more legendary.

Cody i don't get to watch your videos alot anymore or save4dice. But there's no way I'd miss this as the necromancer and or death cleric is my favorite. I must say you brought true undeathly justice to it. Bravo my good sir bravo. Have a great weekend and hope to see you in a save4dice episode soon. :)

Always amazing content my friend love the video

Been playing necromancer for the past yeah and a half as my first ever dnd character, this really helps. Already level 11 and aiming to raise an army of undead for the greater good of the world my campaign is based in. So really good to know all this. Gonna be a goood time. Thanks again. I like being an elf race as I trance instead of sleep to regain full spell slots after 4 hours of meditation.

Currently playing a necromancer as a driver, thank you for this! I've been trying to find ways to make my character stronger

This was really cool and interesting.

My friend and I were talking about this. Get out of my head!

I actually was going for this exact build in a campaign. I would also invest in portable holes, march my undead into them, and pass them off to party members so they each had their own deployable squad of meatshields. It also allowed me to hide my true nature every time we went into town without de-summoning them.

@Taking20 as a sorcerer you could twin cast finguer of death 4x per day for a total of 2920 Undead. No cost, no maintaining control,no scribing and you still have all of your 3th,4th,5th and 6th level spell slot to do as you please during the year. (1-2 are sacrifised to get more sorcery point each day)

The government wouldn't be happy about the zombies, the question is if they're powerful enough to stop them

Ultimate Necromancer is also the ultimate Murder Hobo!

This is awesome. I just recently started playing and my DM wants to do a campaign with an evil party and I just started to put together a necromancer. And now I have this video to make him crazy good. Lol

so many good D&D channels on here now one good thing about the future.

as a DM if one of my players wanted to try this I would say, "You can try..." and realistically play out how all the people of the world would react to this, desecrating so many dead and what not would easily invoke the wrath of many

Basically this build is what my current character was doing. :)

There was a time where I never would have allowed this at the table, but now I think that it would be really cool if the players showed that kind of initiative.

Aaaaaaaand you just helped me finish an endgame portion if my campaign. Needed to see mechanically how to make the lich that my group didn't decide to finish off raise an army and come back after successfully destroying the kingdoms in the northern mountains. Oh they're coming at the most inconvenient time and it's gonna be glorious.

Just a clarity thing: *Signature Spells* lets you pick two 3rd-level spells, not 3rd-level or lower.

Wow that is my Adventures League character he is a level 19 Drow Necromancer😳.....I’ve been playing him since season 3 in OotA . He is a cousin of Matron Mother Zeerith Xorlarrin I have a in-depth back story for him...and oh yeah he is evil. He has had under his control many zombies and skeletons and ghouls and wights...plus zombie beholders and Alhoons from season 8 epic 💀👍🏼👍🏼🕸🕷

Love your videos. I have watched many of them, but I never realized you play MTG. I am a huge MTG player myself. I currently have over 40 commander decks and just can't stop making more.

now this is giving me a massive idea for the next time im gonna DM

I do like the unique creation method you are suggesting. I always love your videos and as an avid DND player, it gives a nice change of pace. As an AL DM… there are a few things that make the build not as viable, for AL sadly… but the information is still great [I have been looking at more Necromancy information as next season, which starts in September, I am taking a break from DMing and will be playing and I keep thinking I will be either playing a Necromancer.. [Or Samurai as those guys are OP]] So first thing that stands out are the spell gems. It would be nice… but getting that many seems to be pretty hard. Getting that many gems is hard… and in Adventurer’s League… it is impossible. Once again… my opinions counter ideas are solely based on AL. So the Spell Gems are out since they are an item that was added onto the AL “Problematic Item” list. That means that an AL character can no longer get that. ☹ The other thing that sticks out I that Command Undead is a Charisma save and while the enemy only gets the advantage roll if they have intelligence of 12 or higher… but I believe Mummy Lords still have a +8 to Charisma. So it is possible for it to still make the save and with Command Undead, if it makes the save once, that target can never be targeted again. What’s worse is that they naturally have Magic Resistance [They are above 8 so the roll is at advantage anyways… but Magic Resistance can be important for what I am discussing down below] as well… meaning they are making that it can actually be hard to get this to stick. Mummy Lords are hard to find… and for this fun… you want to make sure your monster engine sticks. Now… not being a downer as I do have something fun that will be fun… but as I like to tell stories… I want to share a story of necromancy.. So… let me tell you a story about Necromancy with a player... So I DM for Adventure’s League and this story is about a player I DMed for last Season, which for those who are not familiar was Season 7 [Tomb of Annihilation]. The party was getting near the end of the hardcover and the player had just managed to reach level 10. So he had been using his level 5 slot to summon his 6 undead [5 from Animate Dead and an extra due to undead Thralls.] So he had raised them as zombies. Now… he approached me with the question of “Can I equip my zombies”. Between Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford… there is a lot of “It is at DMs discretion” but they did both lean towards this is fine if the bodies were proficient in life, it should be fine… but also remember the strength requirements. Since there is nothing prohibiting this… I said it would be fine… so what is the worst that can happen. For those are not aware, Zombies are CR ¼ monsters.. they have low Armor Class [8], and about 22 HP. They also have 13 strength. Nothing to scary… these are level 10 PCs and dealing with level 10 quality threats. So he decides to give all six of his zombies the following things. The first is Chainmail. It is AC16 and just requires a strength of 13. So the AC for these zombies has just doubled. Now… this was also Season 7 and in Chult, there are Merchant Princes. Players were able to purchase some magic items [It was a very restricted list… but that list was all he needed]. So the merchants sold +1 Wooden Shields and +1 Yklwas [This is a weapon more unique to Chult. It is a Short Spear. Its throw range is super awful [I think 20/60… but more importantly… these are SIMPLE weapons that are a 1d8.] So all the Zombies have a weapon for melee that is 1d8 + 1 [The Weapon] + 1 [Strength] + 4 [Proficiency from Undead Thralls] with a reasonable +4 to hit [+1 from Strength, +2 from its proficiency which we can get from its slam attack and +1 from the weapon] . These zombies HP has been adjusted from 22 to 32 [Undead Thralls]. Also… with Chain Mail and a +1 Wood Shield… the zombies now have adjusted their AC from 8 to 19. There are 6 of them. Also… remember that Zombies have a skill called Undead Fortitude. [If they are reduced to 0, they make a Con save DC 5 + Damage taken] If they make the Con save, they go to 1 instead. Now radiant and critical hits negate this. This little army has become SLIGHTLY problematic… but let's see where this can go. So they ended up going into an area and the wizard made a poor mistake. We do that every once in awhile. Long story short… the necromancer dies. Now this is where things go sideways. If you remember… with Animate Dead.. when the caster dies, they do not die. They are merely no longer under control. There was originally 6 players and the monster they fought killed 2 players… leaving 4 players… who were injured… and now the super powered zombies are no longer being controlled. So they party had to flee in terror as those 6 zombies attacked the party. Good times… Anyways… so for your necromancy build… obviously you want to make sure that you can add as many attacks as possible. So the minions that your minion is creating doesn't matter since those would not be affected by Undead Thralls. So since we want this to stick. We already have been working off the idea of a level 20 wizard in the school of necromancy…. so we are going to shift the target. Assuming you have access to level 8 and 9 spells...we are also going to add another spell to the rotation. So the first thing is to change the target from a Mummy Lord to a Vampire. So now… I know what you are thinking… Vampires are awful for this idea. They have an intelligence of 17, so they will repeat the save every hour. Oh no… oh don't worry… we are not letting that happen... So the spell that we are going to be adding to our rotation is a level 8 spell “Feeblemind”. Now… this is a level 8 spell… so with our Sim, as long as it is fresh, it will have 1 level 8 slot and 1 level 9 [Unless you have one of those Boon of High Magic, but let's say you don’t]. Vampires, compared to their other saves, has an awful Intelligence save [+3] compared to it’s Charisma [+9]. It has 3 Legendary resistances… but assuming that you are a level 20 Wizard… your spell save is a probably a 19 or 20… so it would need to roll a 16-20 in order to pass. Let’s be honest… it’s going to using it’s Legendary Resistances to make sure that Feeblemind doesn’t stick… because it is a 30 day duration of “You Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma is 1. So for its saves… its intelligence save will change from +3 to -5 [So when you decide to reapply feeblemind during that 30 days… it will probably use its legendaries to resist the first 3 and the 4th will then stick because even on a roll of 20… it can’t make that saving throw. So this is our Vampire now. Its save will also adjust as it has a +9 Charisma save with an 18 intelligence. When it’s Charisma goes from 18 to 1, it will lose the +4 bonus from it’s high charisma [Save would drop to +5] then it would get a -5 penalty because the stat is at 1. So its charisma save is now a 0. So it would need to roll a 19 or 20… depending on if your Intelligence is 20 or 22 [Intelligence Tome aka Tome of Clear Thought is only a very rare.]. It is out of it’s legendary resistances. This is now your Vampire. You now have a creature that will always be loyal to you… because as long as you keep it Feebleminded. And this minion can keep creating Vampire Spawn [CR5 monsters] for as many people as you can find as the Vampire doesn't have a limit to how many Vampire Spawns it creates… but they are all obedient to him and he is obedient to you. Your limit is only based on the amount of people you can find. At the same time… now you are raiding graves for your own undead. Happy Hunting.

If I may, you did overlook a Xanathar's Guide to Everything Spell. A 5th level spell called Danse Macabre.

For those who don't know. a Nightwalker is a CR 20! undead monster, with INT 6. They are literally end game monsters for most parties, and your necromancer can walk up to one and own it permanently as a pet. You can do this at least once a day. That's aside from the wights and mummies.

I’ve been flipping through the 4e book “Open Grave” and holy shit, 4e packed a punch when it came to power. Some of those statblocks were insane, and I love them

Purports to have an mtg background but uses Sorin as a necromancer instead of Liliana SMH :p

Now imagine if you did this with a party of 5 people

Thanks for the video!

I was trying to figure out how to play my necromancer. Thanks!

A couple different builds that can get more undead: Same build but you have each of your simulacrum cast simulacrum. As you aren't the one casting it you get more of them. As long as you have the money you can create infinite of you and therefore control infinite undead (each simulacrum gets a mummy Lord etc). Sorcerer/Warlock for infinite spell slots then use all of them for raise undead (the limit to control is how many times you can fit the 6 seconds into a day). Another thing to consider as an option for you possessing control over is the nightwalker, it's a cr20 with low charisma, no legendary resistances, and a low int. It's got an aura of annihilation and can fly. I'd take this over the mummy and their puny army. What do you think? Hope you enjoyed the read!

Well I'mma start my necromancer character rn, assuming I get the DMs approval of course lol.

Necromancer (with finger-guns): BANG! NPC: what the-*die* NPC(Necromancer’s zombie): ughhh-urgh Necromancer: well guess that works (This is basically what the spell: finger-of-death, can do)

At this scale, controling the horde would be a bigger chalange than creating it, but love the idea. I had my necromancer request two items from the DM. One that extended my range of control, and a variant of a Bag of Holding for easier transportation

Feeblemind+Command Undead+Death Tyrant+9th Level Bestow Curse=Infinite Zombies FOREVER

Fascinated by the dragon book but i live in france. Possible to ship it in europe at a reasonnable price ?

Love this video as I was interested in playing a Necromancer. However, I feel that if I wanted to play one, especially to this level, I’d have to play in an evil campaign

You should have way more subscribers, you do great content!

Wish: I wish for the undead army I create to be immortal and under my absolute undying loyal command.

I love playing a necromancer

Got the book man its sweet I love the outrider

Love it and I'm a huge fan of Necromancers as well .. . I've got a Lich (3.5ed) that has the ability to make Wights and they make Shadow Wights and well he's got tons of them now . . . but regardless, love this video.

imagining rolling initiative for 1000's of zombies lol

Honestly, I'd allow it. BUT, the party would find the local 15-20th level undead hunter paladin order coming after them. It'd be a cool arc, if the party manages to survive long enough to take care of the paladins.

This could be a campaign. Adventure 1 could be about the players learning about three villagers that have mysteriously gone missing. The final battle would be the players vs our necromancer (Lich, maybe?) and their mummy lords and a few wights to soak up some damage.

Nice method you make great content. Wanted to offer my method up for review. If you can find a Sword Wraith Commander you can summon 2 to 5 Sword Wraith Warriors per day. It is not specified that the Commander controls the warriors but I would assume they would fight for the side of the Commander. So if we start the day we find the Commander and set the number summoned to 3 per day that's 1095 summoned Warriors. If we use Finger of Death 4 times per day for 363 days that is 1452 zombies. Using our 7th lvl slots for the remaining 2 days of the year that's 4 more zombies for a total of 1456. Day 364 we create 5 wights and make them kill 12 people each for a total of 60 zombies rising in 24 hrs. This gives us a total of 65 undead. Using Signature Spell to cast Animate Dead and all spell slots from 3rd to 6th level slots plus Arcane Recovery two 5th level slots we can create and maintain 92 undead. So that 1+1095+1456+65+92=2709 undead with no items and the only ruling the DM would have to make is, who do the Sword Wraith Warriors fight for.

One of my friends loves to play necromancers in general. I need to make sure he never sees this.

I can't wait to test it out in baldur's gate 3 :0

1.Get bag of holding 2.Turn skeliton 3.Put in bag of holding 4.o to step 2 till full of uncontrolled skeletons 5. Repeat from 1 till done

Additional notes. You can dimension door skeletons into safe areas or shove them into bags of holding. As skeletons don’t need air or food you can just collect skeletons you no longer control then fling an open bag of holding over a wall or dimension door in an uncontrolled horde.

I was already itching to play a necromancer and you just made it worse!

I want to see a player do this And then have to get rid of the thousands of undead the next day before they come after you

Townsfolk: Whatcha got there? *Thousands of undead and undead-to-be* Necromancer: A smoothie

This sounds amazing they won’t expect it 😈

If you finger of death a dragon will you get an undead-dragon or just a big pile of flesh and bones to raise "patchwork"-undead

Nonlich Lich

You know his head and hair cut perfectly align with the mountain in the background LoL 🥷😁

As they slipped further into evil and recruited lieutenants to fetch bodies, I might make the party the big bad for a second table. "Why are my zombies not made." "Oh, sorry, the Wednesday guys stopped the war you guys tried to start last month. Fresh outa corpses." Campaign end is an all out twin group PvP event.